Statutory Compliance Service Delivery Analyst Review

I have really enjoyed my time at GSK. Everyone here has been really friendly and approachable and has been willing to take time out of their days to support my development and help me get the most out of my placement. However, GSK could invest more heavily into their placement students to encourage them to continue their careers at GSK in the future.

I have felt extremely valued by the majority of my colleagues at GSK. My team at GSK are not just my work colleagues but we are also really close friends and I will definitely stay in contact with them all in the future. The only slight issue I have faced in some people giving me their admin tasks to do which was fine if I had the time capacity but sometimes it just felt as though they were using me to do tasks that they didn't want to do themselves.

I received a substantial amount of support and guidance by my team and line manager. We had weekly comms cells in which I could raise any concerns over tasks I was working on. We also had 1-2-1 meetings every fortnight in which we would discuss my development and see how I was working towards my placement year aims and objectives.

My business varied a lot throughout the year depending on where we were in our annual cycle. At times, I found that I was very quiet and either had to ask for more work or find tasks that needed completing and at other points in the year, I was fairly busy. At GSK this is something you need to take into your own hands and if you are bored or too busy then it is up to you to bring this up with your manager.

I was given a reasonable amount of responsibility for the duration of my placement year. I presented accounts to people of high seniority in the business and was left to review a large chunk of the UK statutory accounts. I was supported well throughout all of this but wasn't micro-managed at all.

The skills I have developed over the past year will be really useful in my final year at university and in future jobs. In particular skills such as time management, communication and teamwork will be really useful in the future and can be applied to both my studies and future employment.

My office was a very positive and happy atmosphere. I disliked the 'hot-desking' situation as it meant that my team couldn't always sit together affecting our productivity and team morale. There were a variety of socials put on by Global Tax throughout the year which was a great chance to meet people from across the department.

GSK have used SRG to contract our employment and they have been a bit of a let down. I had very minimal contact ahead of my placement from them which was a shame as it would have been great to have some sort of meet and greet day before formally beginning our roles. They also didn't organise any sort of socials until 3 months into our placement by which point most people had already made their own groups of friends. SRG have left a lot of the work up to the IPs themselves to organise their placement.

GSK operate a 70:20:10 training policy in which 70% of training should be done on the job and only 10% should be formal training. Although for the majority of the time on-the-job training was sufficient, but when learning about complex tasks or theories some more formal training would have been better to help us gain a better understanding of these topics or tasks.

Future employment prospects are reasonably good at GSK. They have a variety of Future Leader Programmes available, but I think its a shame that 1) they don't do direct entry for IPs onto these schemes and 2) they don't support deferred entry onto these schemes. It is for these reasons that I will not be applying for the FLP schemes. I think in the long term, job prospects are really good as GSK support flexi-time, working from home etc.

The social scene at GSK has been fairly good. There has been a variety of events throughout the year for IPs, however, it has been up to the IPs to organise these events. This meant we didn't have single social at our site until 3 months into our placement which was a real shame. We also didn't receive any funding for our socials which made us feel undervalued. In general though, there was a lot going on throughout the year but it was just up to you to organise or suggest events if you wanted something to happen.

I was situated at GSK House and lived with 3 other placement students in West Ealing. The cost of living in this area was fairly reasonable for London, but we are very far out from central London (zone 4) and the social scene in the area was very limited with just a few pubs around.

The nightlife in the area was very limited with just a few pubs around GSK House. This was fine for work drinks but if you wanted to go 'out-out' or do something a bit different then you would have to travel more centrally which would put people off going and also cost more money.

There were lots of opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. We have a subsidised gym at GSK House, sports teams, volunteering opportunities and lots more. There are also running clubs, golf teams etc. This is mainly up to the individual to be proactive and find/join If they are interested.